Friday, 21 November 2014

Having seen Ty's recent forays into Bolt Action I couldn't help but get involved. Being a history teacher in training I'm surprised I haven't found myself delving into Bolt Action previously. I guess all it takes is watching a mate have a blast and then feeling the urge to outdo them.

I've started off relatively simply with the Assault on Normandy starter set, which is an amazing deal. The rulebook, 40 miniatures, dice AND a little bit of terrain all for just over $100. Warlord games is also currently having a Christmas sale so it's the perfect time to get on board this awesome game system. I also picked up a Panzer IV and Sherman M4A3 (I think...). Cause tanks are rad.

After some quick research and a lot of help from the amazing community that surrounds Bolt Action (which can be found easily on Facebook) it became clear that one of the best things about collecting WW2 miniatures is that there are so many options out there. Black Tree Designs, Artizan Designs and Rubicon Models (amazing plastic tanks) are a really good start to look into.

I've got a few games under my belt already with some people I've met through the awesome FB group who were happy to lend me an army to start rolling some dice. Simple to master but with a shed tonne of depth, the tabletop game is lots of fun to play. Above are some British that I actually managed to get a draw with, even after artillerying (it's now a word) the hell out of my own troops. When playing with some American troops I also managed to strafe my own line with a couple of fighter planes. I found out later that this was historically pretty accurate, so I'm ok with it.

I've started by painting up some Germans from the starter set to a tabletop standard I'm happy with for my first try. Great models to put together, with a bunch of options for poses and customisation. I really love working with historical miniatures (I'm usually a 40k man) as everything from the rifle they carry to the way their webbing is painted takes that extra bit of thought and research. I spent hours researching and cross checking a colour scheme before putting paint to models. The potential to theme armies to theater, time frame and even individual units within WW2 is a big draw for me and the possibilities are endless.

I'm going to have a crack at the Panzer IV next, which means breaking out the airbrush for the first time in a while. Turns out that from about 1942 onward German tanks were generally variants of yellow (base) with brown and green camouflage, on the Western European front at least. Wooo! History!